


Semper Fidelis: Si Vis Pacem Para Bellum

by Falafel_Waffel



Series: Semper Fidelis [1]
Category: Hunger Games (2012), Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Gen, Prequel, September 11 Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-12
Updated: 2012-09-12
Packaged: 2017-11-14 02:10:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/510198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Falafel_Waffel/pseuds/Falafel_Waffel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prequel to Semper Fidelis. The events of September 11th 2001 seen through the eyes of Corporal Katniss Everdeen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Semper Fidelis: Si Vis Pacem Para Bellum

**Author's Note:**

> If you want peace, prepare for war.
> 
> As many of you know through my blog here, Semper Fidelis has a real special place in my heart because it was my plan to enlist when I turned eighteen. Well, I got lost on my way to Basic. The idea was a hivemind between Chelzie and I to write a prequel because there is so much that happens between May 1981 and May 2003 when SempFi begins.
> 
> It started with something I’ll probably release soon, a glimpse into the events leading up to Katniss enlisting. In all honesty I should have posted that first but this seems relevant. 
> 
> This was a good, albeit stressful, distraction for me.
> 
> It took some planning in my Civ class. I didn’t want Katniss in New York City because why would she be there, I also didn’t want her in Florida with the president. 
> 
> What I got was this… A short little exercise of who Katniss Everdeen was before landing in Fallujah and the moments that brought her there.
> 
> As always I don't own the Hunger Games. I made no money writing this.

_September 11, 2001_

_0600 hrs_

“Prim! Get up!” Mom calls for about the hundredth time. It’s barely a week into the new school year and Prim is already refusing to get up. Two minutes later, she calls again, “Primrose Louise! If you do not get up right now, Katniss will not be taking you to the museum tonight!”

“Poor Prim. Old enough to ride the train into DC, but too young to wake herself up…” I sigh, finishing off my coffee. “But you know I’m taking her anyway.”

Mom just rolls her eyes. “You’re too easy on her.”

I hear a thump, followed by the bathroom door closing roughly. Mom goes back to cleaning dishes. “Are you sure you even have to go into work today?” My ‘boss’ wasn’t even in the city today. President Snow is actually down in Florida, reading to kids.

I dig into an under ripe apple, or maybe it is ripe and just bad. “I’m sorry, but Clinton wasn’t home when that guy started shooting outside the fence…” At eighteen, when I left for Parris Island, South Carolina, I figured I would go through training, get commissioned and sit on reserve until there was a natural disaster, martial law needed to be implemented, or the off chance that we would go to war. When I was nineteen, I became one of a handful of female snipers and only one of about ten certified counter snipers.

Prim comes tromping down the stairs and sits in the adjacent chair, her back facing me. “One or two, little duck?” I ask while trying to watch the news.

“Two,” she yawns as Mom sets a cup of coffee down in front of her. She passes her brush over her shoulder. I take it and weave her hair into two French braids while she inhales a bowl of cereal. “Thanks,” she tells me as my phone goes off.

“Well, that’s my ride,” I say. Sergeant Matthew Pawlak lives two houses down. At four years my senior, he’s technically my superior, though I refuse to take him seriously. Our first day on the roof, he got bored and asked me my opinion on anal. After that, I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to take him seriously.

“Morning, Corporal!” he greets as I jump into his truck.

“Good morning, Sergeant. Ready for another day in the hot summer sun?” I ask.

He pats his leg pocket. “Brought cards. Want to lose more money?”

“I’m not playing poker with you. We should play blackjack,” I suggest.

Sergeant Pawlak shakes his head. “Nah, Everdeen, you’re nothing but a cheat.”

I scoff, pretending to be offended as we cross into DC. “An Everdeen never cheats. We might lie, cover up each other’s lies, and pretend to be to the outside world, but we _never_ cheat. Counting cards on the other hand, that’s not cheating.” I tap my temple, “It’s just strategy.”

_0700 hrs_

“So, Everdeen, got a hot date tonight?” he asks, taking note of my duffle bag that keeps shifting awkwardly, the strap digging into my shoulder.

“Nah, Prim’s meeting me after work. Our Mom works the night shift so I’m taking her to a museum and dinner, and I can’t really go out in fatigues.”

He just sighs. Women in the military are a bit of an enigma to most of the men. Because I’m single, they just assume that I’m on the market. It’s taken since I was stationed here last year until now for them to attempt to understand that I’m not looking and not secretly cock hungry. A lot of the guys just assume I’m asexual.

“Just wait. Someday, when you get that stick out of your ass,” he pauses to look over at me and waggles his eyebrows, “You’ll let go and live. Then you’ll have to beat all kinds of suitors off…” His voice trails off in traditional Sergeant Pawlak fashion. There’s something out of place in the halls, a painting he’s never noticed. I open the door to our tiny little command post which consists of a few lockers and a bathroom.

“You need to finish that statement or we’re going to have some real big problems, Sergeant.” I pull my Kevlar vest out of the locker and take off my BDU shirt before strapping myself in. I panicked the first time I ever wore Kevlar. The vests were definitely not designed for women. The flat chest pressed my breasts in and made it hard to breathe, but somehow, you adapt. I learned to leave the top strap a little looser than I think I need it and keep the waist tighter to compensate.

“Oh! Sorry, did you notice they moved the paintings around? The one of Snow’s rose garden is out in the hall… I was going to say with a stick.” I just nod while buttoning up.

As a comfort, I pat my vest, feeling the thick heavy garment. I’ve never been shot while wearing Kevlar and I don’t plan on it. People say it’s like being punched by Superman if the caliber of the round is high enough. Even though the bullet won’t puncture skin, there are risks including broken ribs and organ damage. Basically, don’t get shot.

“Ready” I ask. The worst part of the job is the solid black uniform. I swear I’ve sweat out about fifteen pounds this summer alone.

We’re one of the few people in the world who can walk freely through government buildings with sniper rifles.

_0800 hrs_

“Twenty questions?” Pawlak asks while I watch commuters though my scope. Men and women in business attire… some politicians, some lobbyists, but all boring. It isn’t until around nine when the tourists wake up that this job gets exciting.

“Sure…” I tilt myself a little so I’m looking at a woman in a very boring black suit carrying a Starbucks cup. “Go.”

“Is it a person?” he asks.

“No.”

“What color is it?”

“White…” A disheveled looking woman in a bright red dress passes through my crosshairs.

“Only white?”

“And green and brown.”

He thinks, “Is it a tree?”

“What kind of white trees do you know of? And no.”

“Ok, well, is it made out of a tree?”

“Mhm…”

“Is it warm?”

“When you first get it.”

“Starbucks cup! And correction, when you first get it, it’s hot enough to melt the skin off your face.” We bullshit around until close to quarter of, casually glancing down at street level. It’s no big secret; when the POTUS is away, the Marines shall play.

Heavy footsteps thunder up the stairs. “Three o’clock already,” I ask, checking my watch. It’s 0854, barely an hour in.

“Jesus! Is this what you guys get paid to do all day? Sit on your asses and soak up the sun?”

“Anything you need, Fischer?” Pawlak asks as I shuffle our deck of cards.

“Yeah, you gotta come downstairs and see this. Plane crashed into the World Trade Center. We were watching Good Morning America…”

Pawlak and I get off the ground but stop dead in our tracks. “We bake out here in the sun all day while you’re watching _Good Morning America?_ ” Fischer just nods.

“Oh, excuse me Sergeant and Combat Barbie!” I punch his arm, “But some of us are on break!”

I don’t know what to expect, but I let myself be half dragged through the hallways of the White House, out of the old part into the new building where security was stationed. “How the hell does someone do that?” I ask. “It’s like one hundred floors…”

_0900 hrs_

There’s something hypnotic about a tragedy. Like a wreck on the beltway, Pawlak and I just stood and stared as the minutes ticked by. Suddenly, the reporter stops talking about the growing smoke and I watch in slow motion as a low flying plane travels from the corner of the screen and disappears. In less than a second, a massive fireball erupts from the other side of the building. Words simply aren’t enough, all they can do is replay the crash over and over. Hundreds of lives extinguished in an instant. I realize after the fifth re-watch that I’m not breathing.

“One’s an accident,” Fischer sighs. “Two’s an attack.”

“What do we do?” I ask my Sergeant. He puts his hand on my shoulder and gives me a squeeze. There’s no standard operating procedure for this. The easiest thing to do is to just watch, because what else can we do?

The room gets more and more crowded as almost every staff member leaves their post to see this for themselves. The minutes tick by. “They’re evacuating all the big buildings in New York City…” someone says.

“Who would do such a thing?”

“We should evacuate. We could be next.”

0930 hits and we get word that a plane is heading for DC.

It hits me like a ton of bricks. _Prim… Mom…_ I push through the crowd dialing Prim’s cell, “Come on…”

It doesn’t even try to ring the first three times. In my rage, I pitch it down the hall and head to a landline.

 _Nine and the number…_ I remind myself. I still don’t understand why I couldn’t call out of the building without nine before the number.

Prim picks up on the second ring. “Katniss?”

“Prim, you need to get out of the city!” We barely live on the outskirts, but her school is in the city. “You need to get in the car and go home.” They’re short orders, quick and easy to understand.

“Katniss, I can’t… You’ll have to come get me…”

“I can’t abandon my post…”

The line goes silent and I wonder if the call was dropped. Almost every American must be trying to call loved ones. “Katniss… no…”

“Prim, you need to go home. You’ll be safe at home. If they hit the Capitol or the White House, you’ll be far away.”

“What about you?” I hear the waver in her voice.

“I’ll be fine. I have a job to-“

“No!” I jerk the receiver away from my ear. “Katniss, you can’t just-“

Prim and I made a habit of talking over each other, interrupting each other mid-sentence. “Prim, they’re evacuating people now. I’ll call you when I can,” she sniffles. “Don’t watch what’s happening on TV, little duck…”

“I… I won’t…”

“Promise me that you’ll head home!” I hear her jingle the keys. “First few weeks of driving, huh?” I joke, trying to lighten the mood.

“Yeah…” she whispers.

I look out the tiny office as people are lazily leaving. “Just promise me something, okay, Prim?” I don’t wait for a response. “I don’t know where I’m going, or what’s going to happen before I can see you and Mom. Just please, stay out of the city.” It hits me that this could be my last conversation with Prim. The chances are slim, but it could happen. “And if anything happens, make sure you do your homework and go to college…”

“Katniss!”

“Listen, I love you. Tell Mom I love her.”

“I love you, too…” I hang up the phone, unable to say goodbye.

Fischer, Pawlak and I head to the old building. “Alright, we need to sweep this building top to bottom and make sure no one is inside. Everdeen, you take Mid. I’ll take east, and Fischer, you take west.”

“There should be five of us-“

“Wilson and Moore are escorting Templesmith into a bunker…”

It doesn’t take long to cover the old part of the White House, every door unlocked for the evacuation. Esmeralda Snow was taken to an undisclosed location, undisclosed meaning we weren’t told because we were too busy running from room to room, throwing doors open and checking for anyone who wasn’t stationed here and told to stay put.

We have a responsibility to make sure no one gets into this building, even if it means our lives. Like a magnet though, we’re drawn to the TV.

Pawlak grabs my shoulder as we watch person after person jump to their death, disappearing behind the buildings and cars before we can see the outcome of falling from the tallest buildings in Manhattan. Fischer changes channels. There’s someone closer talking about how firefighters are just now reaching the site of the fire in the one tower. Then I hear it, the sickening unforgettable crash of a body hitting the ground just off camera.

“Change the channel!” I wrap my arms around myself, the noise echoing in my mind. “Now!” It’s on every channel we’ve got in this back office.

“Wait… that’s…” Pawlak turns up the volume as the camera zooms into a burning hole in the side of the Pentagon, black smoke billowing from it. “Fuck, shit, motherfucker,” he kicks the table. “That’s four miles from here! That could have been us!”

“But it wasn’t. We’re still alive, we’re still here. The White House is still standing…”

We change the channel again just in time to watch a cloud of white smoke replace the South Tower of the World Trade Center. I just had to jinx it. Footsteps echo through the hallowed halls.

_1000 hrs_

“Why aren’t you three at your posts?” Lieutenant Colonel Darling yells.

“A lot of good we’d do against a 737 on the roof, Sir!” I know it’s inappropriate, but I just snicker a little at the thought.

Darling isn’t as entertained as I am. “There have been two attacks in Manhattan, one at the Pentagon, and there is another plane heading for DC as we speak. Our plans have changed. All personnel are being evacuated. Everdeen, Pawlak, back to your posts.” I don’t move at first.

_Plane… Heading for DC…_

“Now, Corporal!” I don’t need to be told twice. I pick up my thrown cell phone as I head outside, rifle in tow. There are suits all around the grounds making their rounds to be sure that no one gets in. Pawlak and I make short simple rounds, mostly to keep ourselves occupied when instead we’re just listening to the radio.

The minutes tick by. The last missing plane (that we know about) crashed somewhere in Pennsylvania. The North Tower of the World Trade Center and the West Wall of the Pentagon both collapsed.

_1100 hrs_

There’s a plane circling the White House. Each time it passes over me, I brace for the explosion. _This is it_. I tell myself, but no explosion comes.

More people gather at the White House, either waiting for something to happen or looking for some sort of hope. Fischer comes by and hands us bottles of water. There’s a moment where we all just sigh together. We’ve made it another minute.

_1200 hrs_

Every single radio broadcast is calling this an act of war. I start repeating “Si vis pacem, para bellum” in my head.  _If you want peace, prepare for war._

_1300 hrs_

I’m relieved. I can finally eat, though I have to be driven from the White House to Eighth and I, which is fifteen minutes away.

No one says it, no one wants to be the one to say it, but we all think it. We’re going to war. Any day now, we could be on a plane somewhere, fighting back for all this senseless murder.

We watch the aftermath, emergency responders flocking to Ground Zero and firefighters still trying to put out the Pentagon. A recorded statement from the President plays every few minutes, “Freedom itself was attacked this morning by a faceless coward and freedom will be defended. The United States will hunt down and punish those responsible for these cowardly acts."

President Snow is throwing down the gauntlet. “You pack your bag yet?” Fischer asks, sitting across from me. “We’re going to fucking hunt those god damned assholes down and put a bullet in ‘em for every life they took. Every wife without her husband, husband without his wife, and all the kids that’ll never see Mommy and Daddy again,” he vows with a mouthful.

I just go back to watching TV.

_1400 hrs_

A reporter asks Mayor Giuliani to estimate the loss of life from today.

He looks into the camera and without hesitation says, “More than any of us can bear.”

_1500 hrs_

I should be heading home now, but I’m back inside the White House. Every airplane in the United States is grounded unless it is for government use. The President is holed up in some bunker in Nebraska of all places, the First Lady is off somewhere else and Claudius Templesmith is in a hole in the ground, which unfortunately, is where I have to head.

I’m already exhausted when I relieve Sergeant Moore. I stand at attention only because it’s the least effort I can exert while government officials whisper of war.

_1600 hrs_

Osama Bin Laden is suspect number one. Apparently, this style of attack is his MO. I don’t know how that’s possible. The last attack like this was Pearl Harbor, but they seem pretty sure. Who am I to question the top of the food chain, especially since the President is apparently on his way home?

_1700 hrs_

We hear that another building collapses, but they don’t believe there’s been any additional loss of life.

_1800 hrs_

I sneak in about ten minutes of sleep seated in the corner. I’m in this bunker for the long haul. When I think it’s safe to use my Kevlar vest as a pillow, I’m ripped from my seated position. “Where are we going?” I ask groggily.

“Snow is landing in fifteen minutes. We will be escorting him here…” _He’s a big boy, can’t he walk himself?_

We walk in silence through the tunnel and above ground. “Permission to speak… Sir,” I say as we wait outside for the one aircraft allowed in US airspace.

“Granted.”

“Is this it? Are we going to war?”

Lt. Colonel Darling’s lips form a hard line, “What do you think?”

I don’t know what I think, I’m trained to follow. “A Marine doesn’t think; she follows the orders of her commanding officer to protect her country and the Constitution.”

He snorts. “Well, then yes. Snow hasn’t said anything, but we’re retaliating the way only Americans can.”

The whirlwind from the helicopter’s propellers whips my braid right into my eye, a minor inconvenience that almost brings my exhausted mind to tears.

_1900 hrs_

We watch on live TV as the members of Congress gather on the steps of the Capitol. After a few people speak, they start singing. The reporters stop mid-sentence as a slightly off-key, but still moving rendition of ‘God Bless America’ is heard.

_2000 hrs_

The world watches as Snow addresses the nation. It’s a proclamation that America won’t back down or roll over on her back. A promise that we’ll fight back against the terrorists and any group of people, any country, along with anyone who gives them asylum.

_September 12, 2001_

_0400 hrs_

I’m dismissed sometime after two, but it takes until well after three to get a ride home. I can barely get the key in the door I’m so tired. I woke up yesterday at 0500. At 0430, I’ve been up and on my feet for a half hour shy of a full day.

I stumble in the door. “Katniss!” My bag hits the floor with a thud as Prim nearly knocks me to the ground.

“Hey, little duck…” I pat her back as my tunnel vision narrows to the couch. I flop down face down and when I open my eyes next, it’s bright and sunny.

_1500 hrs_

There’s a glass of water on the end table and Prim’s hideous cat is staring at me with its dingy eyes. “Go away…” I swat him away earning a hiss.

I stretch my stiff limbs and roll off the sofa. “Morning, sleeping beauty.”

I sit up, watch and boots still on. “Was it all real?” I ask, “Did I dream it?”

Prim and my mother don’t move, which tells me enough.

Yesterday was very real. I flop back down. “I’m not ready to start the day…” I grumble, burying my face in our old couch. Mom sits down at my head and starts stroking my hair.

“You have to, Katniss… We all have to pick up the pieces. It’s what we do.”

_October 7, 2001_

America watches as we attack the Taliban. I watch as people I trained with, people I work with get shipped off, but not me. I’m what they call non-deployable, and I hate it.

Pawlak leaves me shortly after the war starts. He comes home in January in a metal box wrapped in a flag.

The next morning, I practically beg Lt. Colonel Darling to switch me to deployable, to swap me with someone in Quantico so I can go and help. He tells me my specific skills are more useful back here. How could they not need more snipers in a war zone? It’s not like I do a lot here on American soil.

I’m going to keep begging. I can’t just sit here while my brothers and sisters die.

_Si vis pacem, para bellum._


End file.
